Yesterday marked the end of my fifth year as choir director at Edwards Church, UCC in Framingham, Massachusetts. This means that in less than six years, I have made a transition from never having heard of this place to not imagining life without it.

But in order to fully understand why this church means so much to me, it is necessary to take several steps backward, and reflect on my journey to Edwards over the course of some twenty years.

I grew up in a small United Methodist Church nearby. So small, in fact, by the turn of the 21st century, that it was forced to merge with a neighboring UMC. As a youth, though, I felt like I was in a healthy worship community. I don’t know if this was due to the ignorance of youth (meaning I was wrong as a kid), or if it was caused by the fog of time, that phenomena which can also cause one to stand in a postage-stamp backyard and wonder how it had shrunk since childhood. Let’s take it to be that the church had been healthier when I was young, but atrophied to extinction just as I was leaving college.

There was at least one major benefit to the small-town nature of this church. We had so few people, I was bumped to adult-status very early on, serving as member and then chair of the Music and Worship Committee while in high school and college, and singing in the choir from the age of 16 or so. Then, as now, I thrived on worship unity and flow, and loved getting involved in the creation of any “Lay Sunday” opportunity I could get my hands on. It didn’t completely matter that the choir sometimes outnumbered the congregation. I was cutting my teeth professionally, and the church staff were willing to give me as much line as I wanted. I continued commuting to services and rehearsals throughout college, and even chose my next school based entirely on my hopes of pursuing a church career post-graduation.

And then it happened. During the summer between my two graduate years at Westminster Choir College, the governing body of the United Methodist Church told us that we were too small to be viable. They were justified by their polity, and I see that clearly now. But at the time, it was like having a beloved family member go on hospice care. Regardless of the health of the community within, this church building was a home to me. I had a key to the sanctuary from high school, and spent many daytime hours there in college and on summer vacations, practicing piano and organ as comfortably as I would have in my own house. Yes, at the time, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing it all.

That was it for me and Methodism. Justifiable or not, I decided never to put myself into a situation again in which the wishes of the local community of believers would mean nothing in the end. But that meant that after commencement, masters degree in hand, I had no church home. That was tough, but I see now that I also was free from plugging holes into a sinking ship. I had clearance to do what I pleased, and part of that included getting married and taking the blank slate on the road. We lived in New Jersey for some five years. I was never successful at finding a church music job there. Honestly, I don’t think my heart was in it. I still felt burned by the closure of my childhood church, but more importantly, we were transient in New Jersey. We didn’t know how long we’d be there, and we were both cautious at securing the tentpoles too tightly in the ground. Additionally, we traveled back to Massachusetts on every major holiday, making it impossible to maintain those relationships with my family and pursue my professional dreams at the same time.

I did amend my dreams a bit, though, and was very happy to find full-time church employment, though not of a music-making variety. I worked for two different Presbyterian churches, including the venerable Nassau Presbyterian Church of Princeton, New Jersey, where I served as music administrator for fifteen church choirs. It was nearly a dream come true, there on the periphery of greatness, and using my organizational skills to help all the music run smoothly. I enjoyed the Presbyterian Church (USA) more than the United Methodist Church, but still had fundamental differences with certain aspects of their structure. But, I was getting closer.

Upon moving back to Massachusetts, it was essential that I find employment as quickly as possible, and I ended up tabling my hopes of church music employment for just a bit longer. I managed the New England Philharmonic, a job whose weekend commitments kept me, yet again, from pursuing church membership or position. I served three seasons with the group, learning a lot, but realizing more and more that I needed to reclaim my dreams, and pursue them more vigorously.

In the spring of 2009, I began my pursuit in earnest. While on vacation at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, New Hampshire, a location that I’ve said gives me comfort and clarity, I found the job listing on Craigslist. I was familiar with and liked its town; I had no issues with its denomination; and it was to start for the coming fall. And one line in the announcement sealed the deal for me: “Open and Affirming congregation”. I researched that phrase and it was all I needed to know.

I updated my resume, wrote a cover letter, dusted off my open-score playing skills, and began my relationship with my new home church. There was the phone screening with the pastor. There was an interview, portions of which I still remember vividly, portions of which I wish I still remembered vividly. There was a trial rehearsal, fifteen minutes or so dedicated to working with the choir on Harold Friedell’s “Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether” (the blue-covered one that appears en masse in every church choir library). There was the first visit to worship. And with that regimen complete, I was offered the position of choir director at Edwards Church, UCC. For the first time, some twenty years after the germ had first appeared, I was a professional musician.

From the start of my job search, it had been essential that I find a place whose values were in line with my own. I am a believer that music staff should be true to the mission of their church, and not serve purely as a “gig”. There were a few false starts in the New Jersey days in which I pursued positions, and never made it to the letter-writing phase, because online research was enough to tell me that I could not be comfortable serving them. Step One that fall was to get involved as quickly as I could. I had already screened the place, and knew that it was where I wanted to work. I jumped at every professional opportunity there, conducting, singing, and playing as often as I could. My wife was proud of me, and approved of my position. She gave me distance, so that I could develop relationships without her there, and because she had never been much of a committed churchgoer. For starters, she came every two or three weeks, a loyal supporter, to say the least, but “not getting in the way”, as she would call it.

But, then something happened. Over time, my work church became my home church. My head of staff became my pastor. My supportive wife became my serving wife. This all was fairly malleable, no particular trigger event, but I think by the end of that first year, I knew that we had found our home. It may even have been sooner than that, but I know for sure that after one year, I felt it wouldn’t be appropriate yet to join the church. After the second year, both my wife and I joined Edwards Church. For me, it represented a home after some ten years of a sloppily dangling membership at the church my childhood congregation had merged with. For her, it was the first church membership certificate she had ever held.

From that point on, commitments piled up. We have served on committees, boards, and ad hocs, she has sung with me more and more each year, and the relationships we have built develop and grow. This is where we belong, and at times in these five years it’s been tempting to take it for granted. The hard work, after all, is done. I am in no danger of being fired, we’re supportive members, and can stay there happily as long as we wish. I say “at times” it’s tempting to take it for granted, because there are just as many occasions when I am nearly brought to tears with joy thinking about what a blessing this family is in my life.

Hearing people’s testimonies, praying for others, joining new groups of friends, seeing a member return from a long vacation or illness, receiving a card in the mail. These are all continual reminders of the blessings pouring out of Edwards Church.

This past month, “it” hit me in the most profound manner yet. Our pastor had announced some months earlier that after 28 years together, she and her partner were going to be married at the end of May. As a gathering of their friends, we were all thrilled for them, and being members of an ONA church, in our progressive commonwealth since marriage acceptance had been permissible, it just made sense. As such, we got to work doing what we know best: planning a boisterous church event, inviting friends, planning bulletins, and decorations. It barely occurred to me that I was planning and participating in a “gay wedding”, that term which still excites the general population (in one way or the other). Nothing about it really surprised me. Two people were getting married, full-stop. What possible difference did it make who they were, or what their background? None. To me. And that’s when I realized the gravity of the situation. I was setting up a tent outside our fellowship hall, and a thought came to mind. There are many states where this isn’t legal, and there are people in every state who still frown upon it. Then again, I thought, there are still denominations that don’t allow members of the LGBT community to serve in leadership roles. Or become members at all. Then again, I thought, there are still denominations who won’t allow women to serve at all. Then again, I thought, there are parts of this world where any but men on the most straight and narrow path could face stonings and persecution for any of those things that I truly do take for granted. And as of that moment, I realized, it doesn’t matter how natural this whole event felt to me. This was an amazingly important moment for our nation, and the world in general.

I want to live in a world where it’s not necessary to include a rainbow-colored band on our church logo, just to let everyone know that our congregation accepts you as Jesus would have. I want to live in a world where women are valued as highly as men. But, just because these are “given”s to me, I realize now that I do not live in such a world. Until the day comes when such things are made completely irrelevant, I’m glad to have found a community of like-minded people for the journey. God bless, Edwards Church, and here’s to more years ahead.